Fed job approval rating lower than IRS

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Reuters
July 28, 2009

[efoods]Americans think the Federal Reserve is doing a worse job than even the much-maligned Internal Revenue Service.

Only 30 percent of Americans think the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors is doing a good job despite the central bank’s unprecedented efforts to battle a crippling recession, according to a Gallup Poll released on Monday.

That makes the Fed the worst reviewed of nine key agencies — including the tax-collecting IRS — the Gallup poll of more than 1,000 Americans between July 10 and 12 showed. Twenty-two percent of Americans said the central bank was doing a poor job.

The poll comes as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is increasingly going public with a defense of the Federal Reserve’s handling of the crisis in an effort to ward off a congressional proposal by Republican Representative Ron Paul that would undercut the Fed’s independence.